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A final note on food: I know there are people who specifically include food deprivation
as part of their S&M. Obviously, this is totally fine by me as long as it is consensual, but
I'd encourage people not to expect themselves -- or their partners -- to react the way they
usually do to S&M, as long as they're hungry.

* Weight. I used to be much scrawnier than I am now, and as my health has improved,
I've gained weight. Sometimes this freaks me out (it's impossible to be female in our
society and not daydream about having cheekbones that can stab people), but it has been
worth it. One time, after I'd been having a lot of anxiety about weight gain, my then-
boyfriend emailed me the image of an art card printed with the words, "I gained 30
pounds... & sex has never been better!" He perceptively wrote: "Maybe that's why it's
easier for you to have orgasms now? I think you should investigate this if you try to lose
weight."

I am not in a position to comment about whether being overweight affects sex. But I can
definitely assure you that being underweight is not good for your sexual well-being.

* Sleep. I much prefer to have S&M encounters on days when I've gotten a lot of sleep
the night before; this is at least as crucial as eating well before an encounter. There are
approximately a billion studies that show the far-reaching effects that getting enough
sleep can have on our health, and they seem to usually recommend around 7-8 hours as a
good amount per night (more for teenagers).

As with food, I know there are people who include sleep deprivation as part of their S&M
encounters. Again, this is obviously fine by me as long as it is consensual, but I'd
encourage people not to expect themselves -- or their partners -- to react the way they
usually do to S&M, as long as they're tired. I don't know about you, but exhaustion
certainly makes me erratic and overly emotional. If you're going to be doing something
like S&M that can specifically create an erratic and overly emotional state... well, when
overlapping that with exhaustion, it just seems like a good idea to be careful.

* Alcohol. Alcohol definitely decreases my pain tolerance (quite dramatically in fact),
and it definitely makes it harder for me to get turned on. There is only one bonus to
alcohol, and that's the famous "social lubricant" effect. I personally prefer to limit myself
to one glass of wine, maaaaybe two, if I'm planning to hook up with someone; in general,
stone-cold sobriety is my preferred state to go into S&M. Good S&M makes me high
enough on its own.

I get the impression that some people get drunk before they do S&M because otherwise
they feel too anxious to do S&M. As always, I'm not going to tell other people that they
shouldn't do consensual things... but drunkenness frequently makes it hard to
communicate and hard to know what's going on in your head, which means that
drunkenness makes consent hard. Not impossible, just hard. Be careful.

A lot of people say that mixing substances and BDSM is always bad. Personally, I figure
that if a person has a lot of experience with a given substance, and a lot of experience
with a given BDSM act, and a lot of experience with their partner... then I kind of doubt
they're taking a huge risk by doing a familiar BDSM act with a familiar partner in a
familiar state of mind. It's a lot to deal with at once, and again, it's worth being careful.

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